Damaged motorbikes and debris lie on the ground after an explosion outside a primary school in Guilin, southwest China’s Guangxi province, yesterday,
BEIJING: An explosion outside a primary school in China killed two people and injured 44 yesterday, most of them schoolchildren, state-run media said.
The blast in Guilin, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south, occurred as a man riding a motorcycle passed by the school’s main gate while children were arriving for classes, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.
“First, the motorcycle caught fire and then exploded with a tremendous noise that could be heard from far, far away,” a witness told Xinhua.
The cause of the explosion was not clear.
A man and a woman were killed immediately and 44 were injured, including 11 who were in a serious condition, Xinhua quoted police as saying.
The news agency earlier said the injured included 26 pupils and two infants, who were taken to a military hospital in Guilin, with five of them in critical condition.
Local reports said that the motorcycle driver died in the explosion.
Pictures posted online showed the mangled remains of a three wheeled motorcycle on the ground and another two wheeled vehicle in flames outside the school, with several people sitting on the ground bleeding.
A local official in Lingchaun County, where the explosion occurred, confirmed the death toll to AFP without offering further details.
Police in Guilin have begun a search for illegal explosives in the city, Xinhua said.
China has been hit by a number of attacks on schoolchildren in recent years, including a spate of five incidents in 2010 that killed 15 children and two adults and wounded more than 80.
The attacks have led schools to step-up safety precautions, making it harder for would-be attackers to enter.
AFP
